The salmon rivers and other attractions in and around Vopnafjörður have drawn numerous foreign visitors, including artists, celebrities and politicians such as Charles, Prince of Wales, George Bush, Sr., Jack Nicklaus and Queen Paola of Belgium.

Other services include Vopnafjarðarskóli primary school with 99 students, Leikskólinn Brekkubær preschool, Landsbankinn bank and Heilbrigðisstofnun Austurlands clinic.

Foreign merchants sailed to Vopnafjörður in the early modern age, and it was one of three trade ports in East Iceland in the 17th and 18th centuries.

A local cooperative, Kaupfélag Vopnfirðinga, was established in 1918, and was one of Vopnafjörður's largest employers throughout the 20th century, but filed for bankruptcy in 2004.

In the late 19th century, poor farmers were forced to move into the mountains above Vopnafjörður, when they could no longer afford living on densely populated land in the lowlands.

Modern infrastructure, including roads, harbors and bridges, was first introduced in Vopnafjörður in the early 20th century.

The Vopnafjörður area coastline is characterized by the Tangi [ˈtʰauɲcɪ] peninsula, coastal rocks, islets, coves, river mouths, and black sand beaches.

The Ice Age glacier carved the diverse mountains and rock formations that characterize the area.

After the Ice Age, the land rose as the heavy load of the glacier fell away, and began to look as it does today.

Vopnafjörður has a rainy, mild winter subarctic climate (Köppen: Dfc; Trewartha: Eolo) or a subpolar oceanic climate (Cfc) depending on the isotherm used, −3 °C (27 °F) or 0 °C (32 °F), similar to the rest of coastal Iceland.Despite its extreme north Atlantic location, Vopnafjörður is much warmer than most locations at a similar latitude.